Steve Gunn announces new album ‘The Unseen In Between’, listen to new single ‘New Moon’
STEVE GUNN ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUMTHE UNSEEN IN BETWEEN
OUT JANUARY 18 ON MATADOR RECORDSNEW SINGLE ‘NEW MOON’ OUT NOW
+ ACCOMPANYING LYRIC VIDEO
SPRING 2019 UK HEADLINE TOUR ANNOUNCED ALONGSIDE US & EUROPEAN DATES
“Majestic American singer-songwriter” – MOJO
“His guitar playing and songwriting have that eddying quality that imbues stillness with a sense of forward motion” – The Wire
“As a self-taught guitarist, composer and, latterly, a singer, his luscious deconstruction of Americana tinged blues, country and psychedelia switches between the accessible and the experimental” – Crack
Photo Credit: Clay Benskin
For over a decade, Steve Gunn has been one the American music’s most pivotal figures — conjuring immersive and psychedelic sonic landscapes both live and on record, releasing revered solo albums ranking high on in-the-know end of year lists, alongside exploratory collaborations with artists as diverse as Mike Cooper, Kurt Vile, and Michael Chapman (whose most recent studio album he produced). On his breakthrough fourth album, The Unseen In Between, he explores his own emotional landscapes with his most complex, fully realized songs to date. The lyrics evoke voyages, tempests (actual and emotional), and a rich cast of characters met along the way — the work of an artist finding a place of calm in the midst of a storm. Produced by frequent collaborator James Elkington and engineered by Daniel Schlett, the immaculately recorded Unseen forces a reassessment of Gunn’s standing in the pantheon of the era’s great songwriters.
The Unseen In Between, will be released on January 18th 2019 on Matador Records and can be pre-ordered HERE. Following the guitarist/vocalist’s 3-night residency at Brooklyn’s Union Pool this month and next, Gunn will tour with a full band throughout the US and Europe in 2019, and the full list of tour dates can be found below.
Today’s album announcement comes with the release of a new song titled ‘New Moon’, and its accompanying lyric video. The song begins in the mode of a deep track from Astral Weeks or Fred Neil, with its upright bass and sparse tremolo guitar. But during the song’s final minutes, strings double the melody, and then the guitar rushes headlong, pulling ahead in a wave of ecstatic deliverance. It is a brief but liberating solo, an instant release of tension from the fraught scene Gunn has built, complemented by one of his most arresting vocal performances.
Getting to The Unseen In Between itself was not easy for Gunn. In the summer of 2016, Gunn released Eyes On The Lines, his winning and elliptical debut for Matador. It should have been a triumphant moment, but exactly two weeks later, Gunn’s father and namesake died following a two-year struggle with cancer. During his sickness, he and his son had connected as never before, listening to one another’s experiences and understanding one another’s perspectives; they became not father and son but real friends.
This experience yielded the emotional centerpiece of the album. ‘Stonehurst Cowboy’ is a duet for Gunn’s raw acoustic guitar and spare basslines by Bob Dylan’s musical director Tony Garnier, whose featured throughout the album. The song distills the lessons Gunn learned from his father and it is a solemn but tender remembrance, a tribute to his father’s reputation as a tough, wise, and witty guy from far west Philadelphia.
A sense of musical renewal and emotional complexity fits the new songs perfectly; ‘Luciano’ seems to be about the chemistry between a bodega owner and his cat, an unspoken romance of gentle obedience and quiet gestures. But Gunn peers below the relationship’s surface and wonders about the owner’s lonely future once the cat is gone, a devastating meditation wrapped in soft strings.
And then there’s ‘Vagabond’, Gunn’s graceful attempt to humanize a rich cast of characters whose lives have gone astray, wanderers who live outside of society’s modern safety net, who pursue “a crooked dream” in spite of what the world expects. Supported by the perfect harmonies of Meg Baird, Gunn finds something lovely in the unloved.
Inspired by contemporary artist Walter De Maria’s Dia Art Foundation-affiliated installation of 400 stainless steel poles atop the high desert of New Mexico, ‘Lightning Field’ considers what we get out of art when it doesn’t work, when lightning does not light up the night for visitors.
In a final contrast, ‘Morning is Mended’ is an acoustic beauty so resplendent it ranks alongside Sandy Denny or Jackson C. Frank. Buoyed by a melody that sparkles like sunlight on still water, Gunn acknowledges the hardships around him, the feeling of being a “nothing sky,” and then moves forward into the world, walking tall into the fresh morning. The song is an apt encapsulation of The Unseen In Between, a gorgeously empathetic record that attempts to recognize the worries of the world and offer some timely assurance. It is a revelatory and redemptive set, offering the balm of understanding at a time when that seems in very short supply.
The Unseen In Between – Tracklisting:
1. New Moon
2. Vagabond
3. Chance
4. Stonehurst Cowboy
5. Luciano
6. New Familiar
7. Lightning Field
8. Morning Is Mended
9. Paranoid
Tour Dates:
25/10 – Brooklyn, NY – Union Pool *
1/11 – Brooklyn, NY – Union Pool **
8/11 – Brooklyn, NY – Union Pool ***
31/1 – Boston, MA – Great Scott ^
1/2 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom ^
2/2 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer ^
8/2 – San Diego, CA – Casbah ^
9/2 – Los Angeles, CA – Teragram Ballroom ^
10/2 – Santa Cruz, CA – TBD $
12/2 – Portland, OR – Aladdin Theater $
13/2 – Seattle, WA – Tractor Tavern $
15/2 – Sonoma, CA – TBD #
16/2 – San Francisco, CA – The Chapel #
12/3 – Amsterdam, NL – Bitterzoet
13/3 – Den Haag, NL – Paard
14/3 – Groningen, NL – Vera
15/3 – Hamburg, DE – Nochtspeicher
16/3 – Aarhus, DK – Radar
18/3 – Stavanger, NO – Folken
21/3 – Gothenburg, SE – Pustervik
22/3 – Copenhagen, DK – Loppen
23/3 – Berlin, DE – Frannz Club
24/3 – Prague, CZ – Archa Theatre
26/3 – Schorndorf, DE – Manufaktur
27/3 – Vienna, AU – Arena
31/3 – Zurich, CH – Rotefabrik
1/4 – Lyon, FR – Sonic
2/4 – Paris, FR – Le Petit Bain
3/4 – Kortrijk, BE – De Kreun
5/4 – London, UK – Oslo
6/4 – Birmingham, UK – Hare & Hounds
7/4 – Leeds, UK – The Brudenell Social Club
8/4 – Manchester, UK – Deaf Institute
* w/ Bridget St John
** w/ Loren Connors, Alan Licht
*** w/ Little Black Egg (Yo La Tengo’s Georgia Hubley)
^ w/ Meg Baird & Mary Lattimore
$ w/ Meg Baird
# w/ Sachiko Kanenobu
Steve Gunn
Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Store